On 26 May 2012, Singapore’s attention will be focused on the Hougang constituency by-election between the Workers’ Party’s (WP) Png Eng Huat and the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) Desmond Choo. They are contesting the Hougang constituency because the former Member of Parliament Yaw Shin Leong was expelled by the WP for failing to answer allegations about his extra-marital affairs. He then subsequently fled the country. The by-election will be watched closely, as the WP has held Hougang for over 20 years against the ever dominant PAP machine, but its reputation has taken a hit due to the improprieties of Yaw.

However, in recent days, the spotlight in social media and some parts of the traditional media has focused less on the Hougang by-election and more on a traffic accident that occurred early on the morning of 12 May 2012. A Ferrari, driven by a male PRC national working in the finance industry, crashed into a taxi. The Ferrari driver, the Singaporean taxi driver and a Japanese taxi passenger all died. It turned out that the male PRC national Ferrari driver was an ultra-rich immigrant who owned a penthouse in the upper-middle class area of East Coast, while the Singaporean taxi driver was the sole breadwinner for a family of five. A disturbing video of the accident is available here.

Many commentators on Facebook have highlighted how the traffic accident exposed the most severe fault lines currently in Singaporean society — the rich versus the poor, the $1.8 million dollars limited edition Ferrari versus the humble taxi, and PRC foreigners versus locals. Rightly, many have blamed the PAP government and its extremely liberal immigration policies for generating these extreme economic and social inequalities resulting in gross unhappiness among the local population, and gnawing away at Singapore’s once docile social compact.

Moreover, Singaporeans, both online and offline, are becoming divided over their interpretation of the accident. On the one hand, some Singaporeans decry the fact that the Ferrari driver came from China as everything that is wrong about Singapore’s immigration policy and as justification for their open xenophobia against immigrants from the PRC. On the other hand, other Singaporeans have stood up and spoken out against such xenophobia, arguing that such attitudes betray Singapore’s own immigrant history and is detrimental to social harmony.

For now, local anger against foreigners, particularly from the PRC, has largely remained online. Most Singaporeans are also too busy attempting to make a living to bother about directly confronting their discomforts and displeasures with the immigrant population. But a case can be made that the PAP government’s liberal immigration policies has gradually pushed society towards the edge of some form of violent confrontation. Some say that it is only a matter of time before online anger manifests itself into real action.

As the economic rise of China allows its citizens to exert a greater influence over surrounding East Asian countries, many of these countries are finding it increasingly difficult to contain rising anti-China sentiments. Singapore’s tussle over PRC Chinese immigrants is not unlike those found in Hong Kong and South Korea. Confrontations in the South China Sea also mean that anti-China resentment is strong in Vietnam and the Philippines. It will be interesting to observe how the various governments and societies manage these resentments in the near future.

Update: This related piece on Facebook has received thousands of “likes” and “shares”.

Elvin Ong is studying at Oxford University. To begin exploring these issues in more detail you may want to start here.

11 Comments

Rich Chinese and all other rich or going-to-be-rich foreigners to come in and do whatever they want. No rule, no constraint. Land robbery, eviction, subsistence wage, poor working condition, pollution, all welcome.

As a former immigrant worker (non-PRC) in Singapore, let me say that I think the hypothesis sounds rather forced. This guy was simply extremely idiotic, thoughtless, arrogant. Such an extreme event provokes extreme analysis and the commenters on Internet forums would have duly latched onto the ‘PRC’ factor. There were 197 deaths on the roads in Singapore in 2011.

If for some reason the video won’t open, the guy in the Ferrari was going through a red light at well over 100km/h, possibly closer to 200km/h, and hit the taxi square-on. A dashboard cam on a car in perfect position behind the taxi caught the whole thing. Reports say a female passenger in the Ferrari survived. Amazing.

The point was exactly that extremely idiotic, thoughtless, arrogant guys are in ascendency in the world, for this one in Singapore while the wealth infusion has passed over the taxi driver and his family.

Have’s and have-not’s separation is record high and
exponentially getting wider everyday, global “French Revolution” is a distinct possibility.

I remember how the first wave of (largely blue-collar) PRC expats in Singapore, grateful for the opportunity to be there and trying to blend in, was by and large the most welcome immigrant group in public sentiment.
Then the PRC tourists arrived en masse in the mid-00s and more and more Singaporeans began to frown upon the crude behavior and anarchy of their mainland brethren.
It is almost inevitable that the new (legally) wealthy PRC expats, too confident and too excited to “behave”, won’t draw the ire of the public eye.

(Burning glass perception 101…think how public sentiment in Thailand would have been whipped up had the Porsche driver of the recent BKK tollway accident been a foreigner…)

However, there are forces at work that aim to re-design Singapore to become an Asian Monaco? Luxembourg? Dubai? Bermuda? and this will come with plenty of creeping divisiveness and more spectacular casualties.

If you are rich you can do as you want in most countries where a fawning bureaucracy and police eager for financial advancement look the other way (Australia except at State level is still mostly OK). Anyone else ever notice how every time, without exception, where there is corruption it always involves a politician or public servant? We actually pay these people to corrupt our system of law.

Not to belittle the tragedy of the innocent victims but at least this guy had the decency to die, being a Bankster from the new aristocratic class he gets a free pass, and so spared the government the financially rewarding but embarrassing task of having to let him off on some technicality.

Recently a US Bankster got released free of charges for killing someone, money talks, and 99% of us don’t even have a grasp of the basics of that alphabet.

How do they tell them apart, the PRC Chinese and Singaporean Chinese? Conspicuous consumption? They are all at it, aren’t they? Ostentatious and opulent maybe, like the Ferrari. Just a matter of degree I should imagine.

A shining example of progress with prosperity for some, trickle-down for the rest, preoccupied with envy and status. Democracy? What democracy? For us Burmese to emulate and aspire to, I’m sure.